Beige, bone, sand, tan, khaki, cream, vanilla, camel, wheat – these are shades of the same beige, and they’re the most popular color palette among Americans. It might be that Americans as a people simply love neutral colors as they love the iconic apple pie. It might also simply be, as some home decorating experts suspect, because of fear of committing color combination errors, making their choice of beige really a default choice.
Some experts like one design guru and TV hostess pin the blame on builders, paint manufacturers, and retailers for creating generations of Americans believing there are no other “safe” color options- it’s all right to use other colors provided these are woven around white: bluey off-white, peachy off-white, yellowy off-white, etc. You need to paint a room? Off-white is the automatic recommendation. Warm. Easy. And SAFE. Paint manufacturers and retailers rushed to fill soaring demand, until shelves became full of nothing else. The result is an America hooked on only one color palette: neutrals.
Decorators are trying to wean Americans, trying to draw them out of their safe conches, but if you’re one who’d rather remain with neutrals, here are some tips for you:
Tip # 1 Remember that, in a monochromatic color scheme, the eye is drawn to whatever isn’t the color.
With beige walls, white ceiling, and sand upholstery, the eye will be drawn to anything that’s of a different color-the vermillion metal wall wine art, for instance, or even just a simple vase of purple garden flowers. When your eyes do, you pick up the detail-the texture, the patterns, the bulk. That’s when you should take care that the other color doesn’t overwhelm. The vermillion iron wall art is good-the neutral color scheme shows it off just as you’d want it to, but, if vermillion is repeated in the faux fur area rug, it can suffocate. Remember to sprinkle a more delicate touch of contrast.
Tip # 2 With beige, you need white, something that’s dark, tiny bits of color, texture, and deliberate understatement.
Remember that the lack of color draws your eye to that which has color. If this other color is provided by your wooden armoire or floor, your eyes will be drawn to them, and you need to exaggerate the color in the grains, stain them to contrast with each other. If your walls are also white, you need something there. Choose a finely detailed artwork-it’s perfect against the minimalist background. A sisal area rug, with its visual texture, will nicely round off the room décor.
Tip # 3 Whites love geometry.
Perk up your off-white bedroom by painting wide vertical stripes on one wall, having faux brick on a small section of another, and having checks and plaids for your throws and slipcovers.
Tip # 4 Yours is a bathroom, not a clinic.
White is okay in a bathroom. That’s one place where you keep clean, and white’s clean. But if you have white toilet fixtures, white lavatory, shiny white tiles, white walls, white ceilings, you might end up a nervous wreck. What to do? Add texture. You might have bamboo-weave baskets to hold your toiletries and towels. Or how about a seashell mosaic along a thin stretch of your bathroom wall?
Tip # 5 Remember that when there’s no light, white will appear dingy.
Consider painting the wall or the ceiling tan or brownish gray.
Tip # 6 Provide for winter.
Winter can be particularly dreary for an off-white room without natural light. You can actually hasten spring by splashing tiny bits of color, as when you introduce tiny explosions of color in the floral pattern of your slipcovers.
By: Jeanelle Deppner
